


Think you're escaping and run into yourself

by nerdbeyondlimits



Series: season 8 fics [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hurt Keith (Voltron), M/M, Season 8 Spoilers, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Worried Lance (Voltron), eventual Klance, he is great you guys, lance coming to terms with his bisexuality, non graphic injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdbeyondlimits/pseuds/nerdbeyondlimits
Summary: Lance is struggling with his feelings. What is love? What is family? And why the fuck is Keith so... Keith?Season 8 spoilers!





	Think you're escaping and run into yourself

**Author's Note:**

> guys. guys. guys.  
> This is probably really inconsistent from beginning to start and doesn't make any canonical sense plot-wise, but i just wanted to get this out as soon as possible. 
> 
> Even though i think that Lance deserved better than to just be Allura's baggage (cus that was what it felt like to me) i'm still kinda content with the last season. Like yeah, it wasn't ideal and there's probably a lot of issues i haven't noticed yet. but generally i feel fine with it. feel free to talk to me about in the comments, but keep it space dad approved:) 
> 
> lastly, i just wanted to self-promote myself shamelessly and inform yall about my new story ill be writing. predictably, it will be a post-season eight kinda thing, taking place two years after the season finale. Klance slowburn to be promised, as well as some nice headcannons including james&keith friendship as well as lance dealing with his sexuality as well as his loss of Allura. so if you're interested in that, keep an eye on my profile or why not subscribe:)
> 
> title from quote by James Joyce

As the rest of the crew filed out of the briefing room, Lance couldn't bring himself to get up and follow them. The meeting had left him all but satisfied.

As it turned out, Honerva had gone batshit crazy and had more power than ever before, a combination that was catastrophic. She was able to pierce through realities, which according to Pidge, very well could decimate all other worlds. And as if that wasn't enough, Allura was out of commission.

And she was a whole other problem for Lance. Lest it not be enough that she was their most important asset of basically their whole artillery, she was also Lance's... Yeah, what – exactly? They'd kissed back on earth, he'd even told Allura he loved her. And he did, he really did. But still, there was that gnawing feeling at the back of his mind. He had called her family. What exactly did he mean by that? What was it he felt?

What-

“She's gonna be okay.” Lance startled, jerking his head up.

Keith stood in front of him, observing at Lance with a look he couldn't quite place. So instead, he averted his eyes.

“I hope so.” He wanted Keith to say something so badly, something that could stop the wave of despair he felt spilling over his edges. But Keith didn't open his mouth, and soon it was too late.

“We need to stop Honerva... This force of evil that's been around for 10 000 years. She has a plan that could destroy every reality, and all we've come up with is additional manpower and a prototype weapon.” Lance stared at the table, snapping his mouth shut. _Shit._ What was he doing? Sitting around and complaining about the only plan they had, while contributing nothing to the solution himself. _Great job,_ Lance. _Really fucking great job._

He pointedly avoided looking at Keith, preparing himself for the harsh words that would no doubt be dealt to him by the leader. But when Keith spoke, it wasn't reprimanding.

“I... I know it's not ideal”, he began, sitting down in the chair next to Lance.

“But when is the last anything been ideal? Remember when we first arrived at the Castle of Lions? When we first met Allura?” Lance perked up, looking at Keith. Hearing him talk of the princess was... strange.

“She told us we were the answer to saving the universe, but she couldn't know that for sure,” Keith continued. “But Allura believed, and she needed us to believe. And it worked.”

Keith's words took him back to those days, when they were still so young and unexperienced. When he still insisted on keeping up this silly rivalry with Keith, back when he and Allura was just a faraway dream, something that was never supposed to actually come true.

“Back then, I was cocky enough to actually think I was the greatest pilot in the universe.” _When actually, it was you,_ his mind supplied.

“And I thought I could do everything myself. We've come a long way since then.”

_“We make a good team.”_

_“Leave the math to Pidge.”_

_“Good job, Keith.”_

_“I think he's, like, the future.”_

_“The Lance that's always got my back.”_

“Yeah, we have.”

Keith stood up, turning to him.

“We haven't lost until we've lost hope.”

Seeing him like that, talking about hope in a way that Lance could've never imagined him doing just a year ago warmed something in his heart. He couldn't reverse every stupid thing he'd done to aggravate Keith in the past, but he could damn well give him something now. Maybe the only thing he had left to give.

“I haven't given up. Let's finish what we've started.”

Keith held up his hand, and Lance took it firmly. He was still wearing those goddamn gloves, but even then, the warmth of his skin encased Lance's hand. In his mind, he found himself comparing it with how it felt to hold Allura's hand. It was slender, with smooth skin instead of Keith's rough and calloused hands.

Lance swallowed. Maybe the promise of hope wasn't all he could give Keith, after all.

 

Or so he thought, before he knew that it might be too late to give Keith anything at all.

* * *

 

Keith grunted as the Robeast's blade threw him off his course. He'd never seen anything like this in battle before.

Upon worm-holing to Honerva's location, they'd been met by a pyramid-looking contraption, floating in space at the coordinates of Altea. There were Robeasts there, attacking them the moment they advanced in on the base. The Sincline ship and Honervas own robot stood on top o the pyramid, and Keith couldn't even begin to guess what was going on.

All he knew was that he needed to stop it. Desperately.

Hunk still wasn't there, and even with Atlas' cover fire, there was no way they could do this without Voltron.

Before he knew it, a blue beam of energy shot out from the Atlas. For the first few seconds, he had hope. Maybe they'd worked out how to engage a new weapon? Maybe this was what was needed in order to defeat Honerva? But no, the beam wasn't shooting at the pyramid. It was _channeling_ the very core energy of the Atlas.

Keith realised something must've gone very wrong aboard the Atlas, but he barely had time to reflect upon it until the Robeasts continued their merciless attacks. The energy added to the pyramid seemed to create some kind of huge portals.

One of the Robeasts suddenly stopped firing at him, and turned its weapons towards the pyramids, blasting at it's base. The portals disappeared along with the blue energy – quintessence, Keith realised, and behind him, the Atlas shut down.

Then, a wormhole opened up, bringing the yellow lion and a balmera, but Keith didn't have the time to focus on that. Honerva was blasting at him again, and it was taking all of his concentration to dodge the deadly blows. But they weren't aiming at him, he realised.

But by then it was too late. The projectiles embedded themselves in the surface of the Balmera, drawing from its energy and opening up those godforsaken portals once again.

They had to take them down. There was no other option.

Flanked by Pidge and Lance, he advanced towards the pyramid. Blades flashed around him, and he didn't know how long he could fight them but he couldn't stop and... he was hit – once, twice, electricity crackling in his cockpit.

He was thrown off his course but he couldn't muster the strength to take control of the lion. There were flashes, bangs, red and purple filling his vision. From a half-conscious state, he gazed up at their enemy. Something was happening there, the two robots seemed to be... _merging_. 

It couldn't be, it must be a hallucination, he must've hit his head on something.

But no. The beast was real, and it was holding more power than ever – the emptiness of space was literally crackling with it.

Groggily, he forced himself to lift his head. The electricity had died down in his own cockpit, purple lightning no longer jumping around him, thank god.

“Paladins, report status”, he said into the comms.

“I'm offline”, Lance answered.

Keith couldn't suppress an inwards sigh of relief at hearing his voice, knowing that he was okay. Ever since that day on the roof of the Black Lion, the night before launching, he had known for sure what was up. Actually, he'd known for much longer than that. Maybe from the moment Allura fell into Lance's arms that first day in the Castle. Lance and Allura were happy. His feeling weren't important.

And yet, feelings were rarely that pragmatic, and refused to be ignored and suppressed. So for now, Keith had resigned to suffering his heart-break in silence. It was, after all, what he was used to do.

It didn't stop him from worrying about Lance, though.

Content with knowing he was all right, he kept up the conversation with Pidge, assessing the situation of the new beast. He ordered Hunk to drop of his passengers at the Atlas just as Allura reported that she was heading to her lion.

Then, just as his lion got back its power, the Robeasts did, too. Reading himself for the attacks, he sent out a flurry of orders through his comms, ending it with ordering the other paladins to keep the Robeasts occupied. It was the least they could do to give the Atlas a chance.

Keith dodged their enemies, leaving Pidge, Hunk and Lance to handle them.

“Guys, I'm going in to stop Honerva!” He sped towards the huge beast, preparing himself to boost up his lion to max, when something encased his lion, causing to halt to an abrupt stop.

As if they hadn't plagued him enough already, the purple lightning was back, short-circuiting his control board. And so, he could only watch as the beast in front of him raised it's fist, bringing it down on him.

* * *

 

Lance didn't like it when Keith did this.

There must be something wrong with him, in order to always pick the solo fights, going in risking his life for the victory. Hadn't he learned of his mistakes in the past?

Apparently not, as he was now heading straight for Honerva's beast. Lance's annoyance quickly turned into immediate concern as he watched as Honerva caught the Black Lion in a purple field of energy. He could hear Keith scream through the comms, and he couldn't move, not even when he saw the enemy raising its fist, and bringing it down on Keith's lion. There was a scream, cut off by static. And then... nothing.

Lance couldn't breathe. He vaguely registered Shiro shouting at them to fall back, seeing Hunk's lion pushing the Black one along, more purple lightning, crackling, screams, and then, the silence.

Space was dark once again.

“Honerva did it,” Allura mumbled, defeated. “She's pierced realities.”

Lance was mildly horrified to realise that he'd almost forgot about worrying about her during the battle.

“What do we do now?” Pidge asked, voice small.

“Come back to the Atlas. We need to regroup. Is everyone okay?” Shiro asked. Hunk's shaky voice came through.

“I am. But I don't know about Keith. He's not responding. I didn't see what happened, I just noticed his lion was out of commission.”

“Honerva's beast attacked him,” Lance interjected. His voice was cold. “She used some purple thing to slow him down and she just... she...”

“It's all right, Lance. Bring him back.”

Despite his calming words, Shiro's voice was strained, and Lance felt nauseous imagining his face as he realised his younger brother was once again hurt.

* * *

 

A shrill noise ringed in Keith's ears, making his head spin. Voices mixed in with the echoes, sounding frantic, almost desperate.

Keith tried to pry his eyes open, but it seemed to him the greatest effort of all time. Before he could muster the strength to follow through with it, he sank away from consciousness again.

* * *

 

Lance thought the soles of his shoes might wear down to nothing if he kept on this pacing.

After the battle, all of the paladins had stationed themselves outside the small med-bay Atlas was equipped with, anxiously waiting for news about Keith.

Shiro had emerged from the doors Lance was now furiously walking past again and again a few hours ago, announcing that their leader would be okay with a smile. After that, Pidge and Hunk had disappeared after a while, muttering something about changing out of armour. Allura had stayed longer, but at last even she gave in to the desire for a shower and clean clothes.

With her gone, Lance couldn't hide his skittishness anymore, and so; the pacing. He couldn't understand it – Keith was fine, or would be, at the very least. Shiro said so himself, and he would never lie about such a thing.

And yet... Lance couldn't make his thoughts slow down, not until he saw the black paladin with his own eyes. And it wasn't just the matter of concern for Keith. It was the deeper meaning of that concern. Lance couldn't help but compare it to the one he felt for Allura when she fell unconscious. He'd been worried, of course.

He did love Allura. But he also loved his sister, and his parents, and cousins, and nephews, and...

His family, he realised.

Suddenly, he didn't feel like pacing at all. Instead, he sank down into the closest chair, staring blankly at the wall.

Allura was family to him. He loved her, but he wasn't attracted to her. Now that he'd dared to think it, it suddenly seemed so obvious. He hadn't been attracted to Allura for a long time. What started as a childish crush soon disappeared to give way to the familiar bond they now shared.

And then Allura started showing signs of reciprocating the feelings he once had, and it had felt like such a simple solution. A beautiful, talented girl to date. It was an escape, Lance realised. An easy way out. An effective way to block those... those other feelings- Those existential concerns.

Those existential concerns with Keith at their very core.

Keith... Keith was-

“Lance?” He startled, whipping his head around to Shiro, who was standing in the doorway.

“I noticed you were still here. He's woken up now, if you want to see him”, Shiro continued.

Lance's first instinct was to run. He was halfway up the chair before something told him to stop. The new-found realisations, perhaps. _You've finally figured out that you were running_ , he told himself. _And what you were running from. Don't be a coward now, when it really matters_.

Lance swallowed.

“Is he okay with it?”

“I wouldn't have asked if he wasn't, would I?” Shiro answered with a small smile that seemed all too knowing for Lance's taste.

 

Keith was half-sitting in a bed. Lance couldn't tell if he was paler than usual or if it was just the white bedsheets combined with the bandage wrapped around his head that made it look that way. He scanned the other boy almost unconsciously, looking for injuries. His shirt was bulky around the ribs, indicating bandages there, too. His arm was in a sling, but apart from those things he seemed quite all right.

“How are you feeling?” Lance asked anyway, moving to stand awkwardly next to the bed. Keith narrowed his eyes at him.

“Mildly electrocuted, but otherwise fine. Were you just standing outside all the time? You haven't even changed out of your armour.” Lance's cheeks felt hot.

“Well, uh, you know. I just thought I would follow up that right-hand man criteria, you know.” Something glinted in Keith's eyes.

“All right. But maybe do us all a favour and take a shower before you pick up those duties, yeah? I'll be here when you come back”, he added, scowling lightly at the bed he was lying in and then at Shiro, who was standing by the door, grinning. Lance found himself nodding.

“Yeah, okay.” His throat felt like parched paper, but before he could think for too long, he opened it to speak again. “I'll be back here, soon, then. If that's okay, I mean.” Keith nodded, too.

“Yeah. Now go, you stink.” Lance shook his head, backing away from the bed.

“Is this what I get for being a loyal right-hand man?” He could just hear Keith's faint chuckle before Shiro followed him out, closing the door.

He leaned against it, smiling softly.

“I'm glad you two are really getting along nowadays. You both need it.” Lance felt his face flush red again. He averted his eyes, studying the blue markings on his legs.

“Shiro... If I hypothetically would... you know, uh, do a little more than getting along with your brother...?”

A warm hand landed on his shoulder, making him jump ever so slightly before relaxing.

“If that was the case, I would think that it could lead to some really great things for the both of you. Just be considerate of Allura. Hypothetically, of course.”

“Okay.” He nodded. _Okay._

There still was a lot going on. Haggar was potentially destroying realities, Keith was in a hospital bed, and he still had to figure out a damned lot of things. But at least he wasn't escaping anymore.

That had to count for something.

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know, this is so illogical and weird and incoherent and im s o r r y
> 
> anyways. hope someone liked it. 
> 
> this is part of a series, season 8 fics. ill probably write about stuff i wanted to see someone elaborate on, and also klance au's for my aching heart. if you want me to write about a specific moment or thing, leave a comment and ill see what i can do:)


End file.
